You can't kill the boogeyman: the very real evil behind John Carpenter's Halloween

Follow the author of this article

Follow the topics within this article

There should be a rule about watching John Carpenter’s Halloween on October 31. Like Michael Myers – the knife-happy, mask-wearing stalker – Carpenter’s proto-slasher masterpiece is a perfect engine of terror. It has one purpose: to scare. And as the sheriff of Haddonfield says, “It’s Halloween… everyone’s entitled to one good scare.”

Horror bores will gladly tell you that it was 1974’s Black Christmas, not Halloween, that began the slasher movie. Or that Michael Myers is just the bastard, boiler suit-clad offspring of Psycho’s Norman Bates, or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s Leatherface.

But Halloween perfected the formula, one that inspired a slew of grubby imitators (more inspired by the film’s...